Does a Mexican need a Visa to travel to Canada via the USA?

Question

My girlfriend is traveling from Guadalajara, Mexico to Yellowknife, Canada. However, her plane makes a terminal change in Los Angeles, USA. She will not be leaving the airport. I cannot find a proper answer on the USA State Government Visa website.

Will she need a Visa, or will her Passport be adequate?

Answer 1

you could always go the other way (south)

Answer 2

She will need a passport and a visa.

Answer 3

My understanding is that YES she will still need a visitor's visa in order to have a flight layover in the United States. Please continue to research this very soon so that you can apply for the visa because the application process takes some time and the visa may or may not even be approved. I myself once invited a Mexican friend from Guadalajara to come visit me in the United States and she had to apply for the visitor visa twice before it was approved by the US consulate there. On my last trip to Guadalajara I was given a behind-the-scenes tour of the visa application process at the US consulate. During my tour I was told that about half of the applicants are approved for visas and the other half denied. Furthermore, the application fee for the visa has recently been raised and is now well over US $100. I know that your girlfriend is not staying in the US but is merely continuing on to Canada after brief layover, but I still think a visa is needed. A few years ago I met someone in Mexico who avoided a layover in the United States on his way to Canada PRECISELY because of the visa requirement. Just maybe this rule has changed since then, but I very highly doubt it. Maybe you have already looked here, but try to look for more information on the following website and perhaps even look for a contact telephone number so as to ask your question directly to someone who can give you a certain answer. If a visa is needed as I suspect that it is, again you need to act RIGHT NOW if she is travelling any time in the near future.

US CONSULATE GUADALAJARA WEBSITE:

http://www.usembassy-mexico.gov/guadalaj...

To get a visa your friend must first complete the application form and then schedule a visa interview at the US consulate where a consular officer will question her and then either choose to approve or else deny her a visitor visa. When your friend interviews for a visa at the US consulate she will need to bring proof of economic solvency that proves she will merely be visiting the United States (in this case the airport, LOL) and that she does not have an economic incentive to use a "visit" as a pretext to be allowed into the country where she can then remain long term as an illegal immigrant like many fraudsters have already done. Proof of a good economic status, family ties, anything that demonstrates that she has every reason and intention to return to Mexico will be quite useful when applying for the visitor's visa.

If you need any more advice do not hesitate to contact me at [e-mail]. I have been in your shoes trying to invite a Mexican friend from Mexico and know that getting them a visa to enter the United States is not easy.

Good luck to both of you...

CHARLIE (The poster below): I have just looked at the very website that you linked and done the query for transiting through the U.S. on the way to Canada as a final destination. At the very top it explicitly states:

"U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER

PROTECTION (CBP) TEMPORARILY SUSPENDED BOTH THE US TRANSIT

WITHOUT VISA (TWOV) AND INTERNATIONAL-TO-INTERNATIONAL (ITI)

PROGRAMS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

Those intending to transit the U.S.A. must comply with entry

requirements. Please make entries applicable to destination

U.S.A."

It seems that even to transit through the US you have to get a visa as if you were actually visiting the country itself.

Shawn: Do the query as Charlie suggests below to read the information for yourself, but my interpretation is that YES there may be an international waiting area, but YES you still need a visa nonetheless. The best option for you, to remove all doubt, is to just call the US Consulate and get the last and definitive word on this. If you have to buy a phone card and make the international call to Guadalajara it is worth it, or you can probably even just call the nearest US consulate in Canada and get the same information. No offense to our friend Charlie, but in something this critical PLEASE DO NOT rely on non-authoritative advice from either him or me either on a Yahoo! Answers forum. Get the last word from the source, which is the U.S. government. The very website Charlie referred us to says that breaking the requirements can get you thousands of dollars in fines. Shawn, remember I have been in much the same situation you are in. I do not want your plans to be frustrated by what I know for myself to be very difficult US immigration laws and I don't want your girlfriend's trip ruined. Make a call to a US consulate and thus remove all doubt from your mind...there is nothing more I know to recommend to you...

Answer 4

You should probably check with appropriate consolate to be sure.

Answer 5

There is no longer any such thing as a visitor visa for a short time or  what is called a "transit visa" in the U.S.  Instead of that, anyone transitting the U.S. who is from a country whose citizens ordinarily need a visa to the U.S., will go thru customs at the airport, then wait in a SPECIAL international waiting room until their next flight.  This is true for Mexican citizens and many others.  She does NOT need a tourist visa to the U.S.  You can use the site below to confirm this information.  Just enter her nationaity, enter the transit point ( U.S.A.), enter her destination country, then click for the info.  It will explain about the waiting in the international waiting room.  Let me emphasize...she does NOT need to apply for a tourist visa to the U.S.  It is a good thing that she does not need this as it takes several months, and the embassy is currently saying NO! to everyone...they are unbelievably strict and stingy with visas.